November 5, 2007

In a collaborative effort spearheaded by researchers at the University of Sheffield in England and the University of Michigan, WorldMapper released over 100 cartograms that graphically depict population growth, land mass, trade, worldwide mortality and more.

The worldwide mortality and world population cartograms at the top show the disparaging difference between the population of certain countries and morality from often curable diseases.(note Africa). The maps use 2002 data from the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Burden of Disease project to put a geographic twist on cause-of-death statistics.

Of the roughly 57 million people who died in 2002, more than 18 million succumbed to communicable diseases, complications from childbirth, or nutritional deficiencies, according to WHO. Worldmapper labels these deaths as "often preventable" because the conditions could have been easily treated with modern medicine.